The county needs to adopt the masks out of the house policy that the rest of the Bay Area counties have. Our county needs it more than any other.

Even if you don't have 100% compliance, more people will obey it if you have this rule.

That our county doesn't have this rule is totally bogus. Maybe it's time to replace the health director with someone who isn't afraid to take tough decisions.

We could make face mask guidance be more prevalent in the media.
Not sure about the usefulness of contact tracking at this point - but we could do a better job of antibody testing to identify folk who have already contracted the virus and have recovered - the virus is its own vaccine - because they can go back to work straight away.
What would it take to create high availability of simple, cheap antibody tests kits?

We need massive increases in all testing, in order to get back to some version of 'normal'.

Why is Donny preventing tests from getting to Americans after he promised tests a month ago?

Now 45 says he needs the governors to provide the tests. Donnie just works there! It's not his job.

Please stop spewing misinformation. First you pushed the "Trump pill" which, having been studied now, looks MORE deadly than standard treatment. Then, you moved on to pushing that we're already well on our way tonherd immunity based on faulty studies. Now, you're saying things like "the virus is its own vaccine" when the reality is that people recovering from many coronaviruses only have protection for a few months, and this is a novel coronavirus we don't know much about yet.

I know you want Trump to have some big win and "open up the economy" but your misinformation is dangerous. Science takes time and the most dangerous thing we could do now is rush back into things with wishful thinking by amateur epidemiologist/immunologists like you. Let the experts do their work.

Supes should have been focused on this issue weeks ago when reasonable (non-fear driven) people could see that the curve had shifted and we had adequate medical capacity. Their lack of engagement will cause tens of thousands of SCC residents to lose their jobs and join the over a mile long line for the food bank in San Jose. Our unemployment insurance and other (small) social safety net programs will run dry and they will go crawling to the feds for a handout. Time to gradually start reopening (safely) now!

regarding our national leadership...These daily briefings by POTUS are a travesty, the spin and the blame game is non-stop, examples from April 23rd 'briefing'...who talks like this?
"we have done incredibly well"
"we have 500M masks (that will be shortly be here)" shortly? it's April 23.
"we have ordered millions of masks", "we have done an AMAZING job"
"but it's all up to the governers"
"we got the job done"
"I'm not a doctor"
"we would be at War with N Korea if I was not elected President'
"Heat might help, a good thing to look at" followed by Dr Birx refuting
"I'm the president you're fake news"
"lamestream media"
"CNN is fake news, don't talk to me"
"we have a sleepy guy in a basement of house" referring to Biden

These are not public health updates, this is bombastic rhetoric intended to secure his re-election...God help us if that should happen.

Anyone who votes for him needs their head examined.

A mask requirement would be helpful, if only to provide protection for those who are working in and exposed to nonessential businesses that are still operating throughout Mountain View. Grocery stores employees, at least at the stores where I shop, are wearing masks and gloves. However, the landscaping companies that are still circulating throughout the city are not requiring their employees to wear masks, which means these employees with no protective coverage are using leaf blowers and other tools (all cosmetic in nature) often right in front of residence doors (no 6' distance there). Obviously these companies are not paying one bit of attention to the orders, so perhaps masks would offer some protection for residents.

I'd like to see the Santa Clara County Coronavirus dashboard tell us something about how well tracing is going. What fraction of new cases had all their recent contacts traced? What is the average time between exposure and isolation? What is the average time between isolation and test results which allow uninfected contacts to exit isolation?

In Iceland more than half of the new cases emerge in people who are already isolated because of contact tracing. I'm not sure what the threshold for Santa Clara should be in order to exit mitigating and enter containment, but it'd be great to see if we're making daily progress toward that goal.

Also, it seems like a lot of cities outside of San Jose have not seen new cases in many days.

I agree the masks should be worn by everyone,
But to the person named “jes sayin”, while this seems like an agreeable opinion, why do you think that our county needs it more than others?
Does it have to do with a denser population or are you trying to call out demographics?
The fact that you needed to just say that makes me think there’s something else that you want to say.
Be healthy everyone.

Yesterday at a news conference, President Trump suggested the experts look into getting disinfectant into bodies to clean them out. Disinfectants can "kill" Covid-19 on surfaces, he seemed to reason. After the news conference, Trump claimed he was just being "sarcastic." He knew all along that injecting or ingesting disinfectants would not be an answer. Sure he did. And Trump never lies. Call me sarcastic.

I’d like to know among all the confirmed cases, how many people have recovered. Seems I can’t find any data on number of recovered patients. And if they could share their experience to recover, that will be more valuable for others to look for remedy, best practices, reference.

“Dr. Sara Cody said she cannot begin easing restrictions until it's certain that hospitals have enough room to treat all those who need care, and that there is enough personal protective equipment for medical staff to safely work.”

According to the Santa Clara County Coronavirus Dashboard as of 4/24, the are 176 hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients with a total of 2,036 beds available. I have no information on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) counts for local hospitals, clinics and urgent care centers.

Lines are growing at California food banks. Laid off workers and shuttered small business owners have bills to pay. Small businesses advertise in the Mountain View Voice. What is Dr. Cody and our county Board of Supervisors doing to obtain PPE and what will be the first businesses allowed to reopen?

Here in the uk we are getting all the same reasons to stay in lockdown as you are but after 6 weeks people are starting to ignore advice and things are drifting back to normal .

Sophie88 -- I don't think our county has released the recovery numbers to the public. At a national level you can see recovery numbers country by country at worldometers dot info

Has anyone noticed how many times the narrative has changed? At first, it was "stay home just in time for us to increase hospital beds and PPE and get some ventilators..." The idea was very obviously to slow the spread. Now, that narrative has changed from Newsome and Cody to "Stay home until we can 100% guarantee that the lowest possible people will die and everything will be just as perfect as can be from a health standpoint." Also, everyone keeps confusing two data points.
1. CASES- these are not useful, because first we were only testing the hospitalized and very elderly. Now that we are acquiring more swabs, reagents and other supplies needed, OF COURSE "cases are increasing." This is a useless data point, especially considering the new studies coming out.
2. Hospitalizations and Deaths- THIS is the data point that COdy, Newsome, and all of our leaders should be watching. And let's face it. People are going to get sick and die of Covid and many other things. I am not being calloused and am of course concerned for everyone including my 96 year old Grandmother. However, as long as hospitalizations remain within reach of our community to handle them, we should open up. THese are the numbers we should be watching, NOT Cases!

Watch as they keep changing the narrative.

No company, not even the big tech companies are immune to this economic disaster. And we already know small business owners and those who live paycheck to paycheck are in dire straights! We have to open up!

> "Stay home until we can 100% guarantee that the lowest possible people will die and everything will be just as perfect as can be from a health standpoint."

You blame Governor Newsom for supposedly 'changing the narrative', yet you created your own narrative above. I await your link to that particular quote you 'provided'.

One also notes your habitual misspelling of his name - is that a trumpian thing?

WE HAVE TO GET IN REVERSE GEAR NOW REGARDING REMOVAL OF STAY AT HOME!

Friday the WHO proved that being positive for ANTIBODIES of COVID 19 is NOT PROTECTION against REINFECTION.

And look at all the money now WASTED on the development of the ANTIBODY tests. Now that they do not provide protection against REINFECTION.

What this prove unfortunately is that COVID 19 has a short MUTATION perion, meaning it changes rather rapidly. The REAL problem with that is one infection and one VERSION (version 1.0) of ANTIBODIES do not necessarily work on VERSION (version 2.0).

Now if it mutates the GOOD way, it is lesser deadly, but it also can become a worse dangerous version.


THIS MAY FORCE STATES LIKE GEORGIA TO REVERSE COURSE.

BOY ARE WE ALL IN A SERIOUS SITUATION.

> The deeply disruptive public health order appears to be working

Yet states without lockdowns also seem to be doing fine. Sweden is doing fine. There is no correlation to the lockdown and a reduction of fatalities.

This whole debate is so logically stupid, it's like normally smart people left their brains at the Caltrain station. Everything should reopen right now. Flattening the curve was to buy time for health facilities to catch up -- it wasn't to eliminate the infection. Health facilities are plenty caught up.

From the Santa Clara order: "This public health emergency has substantially worsened since the County issued the Prior Shelter Order on March 16, 2020, with a significant escalation in the number of positive cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, and increasing strain on health care resources."

Ok, so the prior order didn't actually do anything? It got worse despite the order? Yet in states without such orders, cases have also now declined.

The flu peaks and declines seasonally as well. Without lockdown orders.

Correlation doesn't equal causation folks.

We are destroying the mental health and development of children right now with the school closures. Talk to any 5 year old doing Kindergarten via Zoom -- or talk to a 2nd or 3rd grader. It's an atrocious situation that we are sacrificing kids because some old people might get sick. Lock down the old and sick, but let the rest of the county get back to their lives. The cure is worse than the disease. If people want to stay locked down -- no problem, that's what freedom means.

If you are scared, you can stay home, but the government doesn't have the right to force everyone to cower under the bed -- that's what a dictatorship. looks like.

> This whole debate is so logically stupid

Actually, one has to question the lack of logic or 'wisdom' displayed by your pasting of false RW talking points, such as:

> Sweden is doing fine

BusinessInsider Web Link :

"Sweden has nearly 10 times the number of COVID-19-related deaths than its Nordic neighbors. Here's where it went wrong."

"Charts ... show that Sweden's cases have yet to plateau, while Norway's case count appears to be on a downslide."

So the rest of your post was based on a false claim/frame. Might as well just flush the rest of it. Nice try.

Want to talk about Scandinavian healthcare for all? Their vastly superior social safety net?

> Sweden is doing fine

Geez. Your comment about "logically stupid" seems to have boomeranged.



- - - COVID-19 deaths per million people Web Link

Sweden: 149.61
United States: 117.55

Denmark: 59.74
Norway: 27.3